After President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance in June, Donald Trump’s electoral prospects looked so bright that his senior advisers began openly predicting a landslide victory. With confidence soaring among Republicans, the Trump campaign set its sights on light-blue states such as Virginia, Minnesota and New Hampshire, which suddenly appeared to be in play.
For a New York minute, even Trump’s former home state began to look surprisingly vulnerable. Pre-debate polls showed Biden up by only 7 to 8 points in New York — a state he won by 23 points in 2020 — and Democrats started sounding the alarm. “I truly believe we’re a battleground state now,” said Manhattan Borough President Mark Levine after the debate. The news kept getting worse for New York Democrats. According to Politico, private polls taken in one of the state’s half-dozen swing districts found Trump slightly ahead of Biden, casting a dark shadow over down-ballot candidates.
This has national implications. In 2022, New York was one of the few states where the widely anticipated “red wave” had actually materialized, at least in the suburbs and exurbs of New York City. Republicans picked up several seats in Long Island and the Hudson Valley region, which ultimately helped the GOP secure its current razor-thin majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. Now, two years later, those same districts are once again up for grabs, and the party that comes out ahead will most likely control the House next year.
In 2022, New York was one of the few states where the widely anticipated “red wave” had actually materialized.
The president’s decision to drop out of the race and endorse Kamala Harris immediately changed the shape of the election and calmed the nerves of Democrats in blue states, where polls have markedly improved for them in the months since. According to the latest poll from Siena College, Harris has more than doubled Biden’s lead in New York and currently holds a 19-point advantage over Trump (58 to 39 percent). There is no longer any serious talk about Trump potentially flipping blue-leaning states such as Virginia or Minnesota, let alone a solid blue state like New York.
Yet the son of Queens hasn’t quite given up on his dream of becoming the first Republican to win in New York since Ronald Reagan in 1984. “We can win New York. We’re going to win New York,” he declared at a rally in Long Island in September. Trump’s fixation on his former home state partly explains his decision to hold one of his last major rallies before Election Day at Madison Square Garden. He has reportedly been obsessed with filling “the Garden” for a long time, and on Sunday he did just that, making his final pitch in the heart of Manhattan to supporters who flooded in from across the tri-state area.
Trump was hardly the only one inside New York’s iconic arena who sensed a shift in the Empire State. “Welcome to 2024: New York is a swing state,” declared venture capitalist and former Republican candidate Vivek Ramaswamy to the boisterous crowd. “I don’t follow the polls … I follow the energy — and this does not feel like second-place energy here tonight.” Echoing this claim, Rep. Elise Stefanik, who represents one of the state’s reddest districts in the upstate region, proclaimed that this year “New York is Trump country.”
Nearly 20,000 Trump supporters filled the arena. Many were from out of state, but some of the New Yorkers I spoke to agreed that this year felt different from previous elections. “New York going red? I think it’s 49 percent … almost 50-50,” a 21-year old man from Astoria, Queens, told me. “A lot of people are moving towards Trump. Right now I don’t really have friends who are not for Trump.”
By far the most confident attendee I spoke to was Elizabeth Blaise from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, who emigrated from the Dominican Republic 15 years ago and claims to have voted Democratic in 2020. “I believe that [Trump’s] going to win about 75 percent of New York,” she said. Blaise told me that her declining economic situation, coupled with bitterness towards migrants, pushed her to embrace the Republican candidate: “Over the last four years, I have gone from almost middle class to almost impoverished by the amount of money that has been collected from me and everyone in New York just to give it to the newcomers.” (Contrary to simplistic narratives that have fueled anti-migrant sentiments, immigrants have historically boosted New York’s economy and contributed billions in tax revenue.)
The state’s drift to the right in recent years is hardly a figment of the conservative imagination.
Vibes are just vibes, of course, and there is little actual evidence to support the confidence displayed at Madison Square Garden over the weekend. Still, the state’s drift to the right in recent years is hardly a figment of the conservative imagination. Come next week, New York could help Republicans hold onto their slim majority in the House.
The real New York races to watch on Election Day are in the suburbs, where Republicans who won in 2022 are hoping to defend their seats — and with them the GOP majority. These races reveal the reactionary mood that has overtaken not just some parts of New York, but much of the country. Aside from fulfilling Trump’s longtime wish to sell out the Garden, this final rally in New York was partly about boosting the state’s down-ballot Republicans.
“We’re about to grow that majority, [and] New York is going to make that happen,” predicted House Majority Leader Mike Johnson in his speech. “You’re going to elect our incumbents here and our challengers.”
Whether Trump’s campaigning efforts will actually help down-ballot Republicans in New York, however, is an open question. Indeed, the extreme and vitriolic rhetoric that was on display at the Garden is more likely to alienate than appeal to the upper-middle-class suburbanites who live in places such as Long Island’s historically blue-leaning 4th district. Its current representative, Anthony D’Esposito, is a former NYPD officer who rode New York’s mini-red wave into Congress two years ago. This year, he is defending his incumbency in a rematch with Laura Gillen, a moderate Democrat who previously served as supervisor of the town of Hempstead.
D’Esposito spoke in September at Trump’s rally at Nassau Coliseum, which is located in his district, and seems to be staking his reelection bid on riding the former president’s coattails (much like he and others did in 2022 with Republican gubernatorial candidate Lee Zeldin). Gillen, meanwhile, has run as a centrist Democrat promising to defend reproductive freedom, support Israel and increase funding for border patrol, while painting her opponent as a MAGA Republican — in other words, emulating the Harris campaign’s strategically dubious pivot to the center. Recent polls show Gillen leading in what will likely be a close race.
Other battleground districts in the state share a similar dynamic. Many Republicans are engaging in an awkward dance with Trump while their Democratic opponents are running as moderates who will stand up to both the MAGA agenda and the so-called far-left. Consider New York’s 19th district in the Hudson Valley and Catskills region. In November 2022, Republican Marc Molinaro ran here as a moderate Republican, distancing himself from Trump and promising to work across the aisle. He defeated his Democrat opponent, Josh Riley, by less than 5,000 votes out of nearly 300,000 cast. But this year Molinaro has made a sharp turn to the right, embracing Trump and even amplifying his racist conspiracy theories about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
Seven New York districts have been rated competitive, and five are currently held by first-term Republican incumbents.
Again, his opponent is Josh Riley, a lawyer who served as former Sen. Al Franken’s general counsel on the Senate Judiciary Committee and who has leapt on Molinaro’s puzzling embrace of the MAGA agenda. While running on certain populist economic themes, such as rejecting corporate Super PAC money and supporting labor unions, Riley has positioned himself to the right on issues such as crime and immigration, calling the Southern border an “absolute disaster” and blaming Biden and “politicians from both parties” for “refusing to secure it.” Riley is currently polling slightly ahead of Molinaro.
However, the Democratic candidate most emblematic of New York’s conservative drift in recent years is Mondaire Jones, who is running against Republican incumbent Mike Lawler in the state’s 17th district (Hudson Valley). Jones was first elected in the 17th district in 2020 as a bold progressive who supported policies such as “Medicare for All” and calls for “defunding the police.” He has since trekked to the center.
After redistricting in 2022, Jones opted to run in another district representing parts of Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, and he lost in the primaries. Now seeking to reclaim his former district, he has refashioned himself as a moderate pro-Israel Democrat who endorsed Westchester County Executive George Latimer over progressive “Squad” member Rep. Jamaal Bowman in their primary this year. (Latimer, aided by redistricting and record outside funding from AIPAC, easily won.) Like neighboring districts, the race is neck-in-neck, with Lawler holding a slight edge.
All together, seven New York districts have been rated competitive, and five are currently held by first-term Republican incumbents. The state’s battleground races show how close the election could be Tuesday. They also show that, regardless of which party prevails, progressives might grapple with a conservative drift for years to come.
The post All Eyes on New York appeared first on Truthdig.
